Changing Times
by Berne
Summary: Not only has he a tongue of silver, but he has a mouth of gold, eyes of pitch and rainbows in his hair. He has Caribbean skin, a quick grin, cheekbones that an aristocrat would give his inheritance for.


****

Author: Berne

****

Disclaimer: All belongs to Disney.

****

Feedback: Very much appreciated.

****

AN: Love to Ociwen and Thalia for betaing.

****

Changing Times

His eyes told you that you were his as they shone at you through the darkness. His lips told you that you were his as they fluttered down your throat. His silver tongue told you that you were his as it licked a burning path up your thigh. His body told you that you were his as he danced you back against the table.

Your heart told you that you were his because you wanted it to be so. But perhaps you should have listened to them when they tried to explain that 'sliver tongue' was never meant as an expression of endearment. And that a whore was just that: a whore.

They warned you that he would never change his ways. They warned you that he was a slut, a trug, a harlot. They warned you that he warmed a different bed every night. They warned you of so many things, but when you glance across the counter at him you pay them no heed. Because not only has he a tongue of silver, but he has a mouth of gold, eyes of pitch and rainbows in his hair. He has Caribbean skin, a quick grin, cheekbones that an aristocrat would give his inheritance for.

From the tavern gossip he also wore a dagger in his left boot, slept with a pistol under his pillow and could strangle a man he took a dislike to. You can imagine what 'dislike' implies, and you try to ignore the drunkard steering him roughly out of the door.

But you can't ignore it, can you? You never could.

He's propped up against the side of a blacksmith's when you find him down at the docks, chest heaving, head thrown back, a stained dagger balanced between curled fingers.

You stand in front of him and he grins, slowly, teasingly. Perhaps a little painfully too, you think, letting your hand hover over the blackening skin of his throat. Instead, you ghost a kiss over the bruising and he opens his eyes, studying you.

"Giselle, love."

He tilts his head and looks past you, lampblack eyes narrowing. You turn around to follow his gaze and see the newly docked ship sitting further out in the bay. It should barely be visible in the night, but the full moon paints its decks with a silvery sheen, bleaching the sails to the colour of weathered bone.

"The_ Black Pearl_," he breathes, spinning you about. His eyes hold something that has never been directed at you, something that has never been thrown at any of the regulars in your mother's tavern. "She's mine," he continues, ducking his head to look you in the eyes. "She wants me to go to her."

You also hadn't listened to them when they warned you that he was mad.

"Then go," you say, regardless, because what's life without a little madness? "Ask the Captain if you can stay on as cabin boy."

"Hmm." His fingers are pushing past your skirts, tracing the tops of your stockings. You shiver, but don't protest. "You want to tell me what the lucky sod's name is?"

You close your eyes and bite down on the sudden urge to refuse. Instead, you concentrate on concentrating and tell him, "Mackenzie. Captain Elliot Mackenzie."

He removes his hands from your thighs and flashes a grin at you. A brief kiss and then he's gone, swallowed up by the night.

You stay where you are and you see him, less than half an hour later, his legs wrapped around Captain Mackenzie's waist, fingers buried in his hair, tongue thrust down his throat. The Captain stumbles towards the rowing boats before dropping the boy and rowing an erratic course back to the _Black Pearl_.

That was the last time Giselle saw Jack Sparrow for a long, long time. When he returned to Tortuga, he was Captain of the _Black Pearl_, and was never without a bottle of rum in one hand and a whore in the other. Things had changed for her too, because now she understood. She understood because his life was now hers. _He_ was pushing gold into _her_ palm while she tasted the rum on his breath.

"Times change, love," he would tell her with a slow, sideways grin. "Times change and things change. Fate's a far fickler mistress than the sea, but she's led me well so far." Near-silence (because nothing is ever quite silent with Jack), and then repeated, this time in a whisper that warms her collarbone. "_Times change_."

And she would look at him, and she would say with more gravity than she had intended, "But people don't, Jack. People don't change."

A dark frown and then he would be gone, effects snatched up, the door-slam echoing in her ears.

The next time the _Black Pearl_ docked at Tortuga there was no Jack. Only raping and murdering and pillaging. She had asked after him, of course (how could she _not_ ask?), but all she received for her troubles was a slap and a tale of mutinies and maroonings and madness that had her crying herself to sleep for a week.

The next time she saw Jack she fainted and didn't recover until the morning after he'd left.

The _next_ time she saw Captain Jack Sparrow she slapped him.


End file.
